Coming-of-a-certain-age musical looks at the trials and triumphs of two women in midlife

By Janie Nafsinger

Boom!, Dec 31, 2009

Chuck Gerlach

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The protagonists in Miriam Feder’s new musical play have a lot in common with their creator and with other women who have reached that certain age – “somewhere around 50,” according to Feder.

Marriage and divorce, careers and children, heartache and joy – the milestones of the first half of their lives are behind them, and new roads lie ahead.

Add singing and dancing, and you have “The Only Way Out is Through,” a Feder original that, in the playwright’s words, “takes a tour through the ravages of time, culture, family life and BS.”

“Lots of the middle-age pleasures are small pleasures – maybe not as dramatic on stage, but they’re small stories,” says Feder, 54, a West Linn resident and former lawyer who also has written three one-woman shows and a couple of student productions.

In fact, it was her desire to see more theater about people of her generation that inspired Feder to write her new musical. “I’ve noticed I don’t have much in common with characters I’ve seen in serious theater,” she says.

“The Only Way Out is Through” will open Jan. 15 as part of the second annual Fertile Ground, a citywide festival of new works. It’s a two-woman show directed by Chrisse Roccaro and co-starring Feder and Cindy Lyndin as college best friends who get together 20-some years later to catch up with each other.

This is not, Feder emphasizes, about menopause or men.

“It’s not a midlife crisis play; it’s like a midlife opportunity play,” she says.

“Beyond hormonal,” she adds with a laugh.

Feder, who grew up in Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area, moved to Oregon 32 years ago from Minneapolis after graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in theater from the University of Minnesota. Though she’s enjoyed theater since she was a child, starring in a production of “The Snow Girl” when she was 10, Feder never did much with her degree. “I guess I was too scared of being a waitress to take a shot at it,” she says.

Instead, Feder came to Portland and attended law school at Lewis & Clark College, then moved to Washington, D.C., to work for the federal government.

She returned to Portland to practice law for about 11 years, got married and gave birth to a daughter who’s now about to graduate from college herself.

Feder is no longer married, and she no longer practices law. She now has a job tutoring high school students in SAT preparation.

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